Ash rained from the sky.
Where once Mirehold stood, a crater now steamed with molten rock and glowing bones. Squad Umbra stood at the edge, faces lit by the infernal glow. None spoke. The ruin was gone, but the truth it had revealed clung to them like a second skin.
Kaizen stood at the epicenter, eyes still smoldering. The fire inside him hadn't faded—it had changed. It pulsed slower now, deliberate. Like a second heartbeat beneath his flesh. His body no longer felt like his own. It was something older. Sharper. Hungrier.
Ayaka touched his arm. "Are you still... you?"
He looked at her.
And for a brief second, she saw something else behind his eyes—not madness, but purpose forged in pain.
"I'm more me than I've ever been," he said.
They began to walk again. South, toward the Wastes. Toward the final rift that kept birthing Bists at alarming speed.
But Mirehold had left them with more than truth. It had left them a map.
---
Night fell.
Their campfire barely flickered against the wind. Kaizen sat apart, drawing sigils into the dirt. His hands moved instinctively, remembering runes no one had taught him.
Ayaka approached, carrying a faded scroll they had taken from the ruins. "This map leads to three sanctums. One in the Wastes. One beneath the Deadlake. And one... inside the Obsidian Spine."
Kaizen nodded. "Each one holds a part of the Veinborn legacy. Seals. Crowns. Weapons forged from blood."
Vorn crossed his arms. "If that thing in Mirehold was right, then unlocking all three could either kill Kaizen... or turn him into something worse than the Bist."
Ayaka's gaze darkened. "We don't have a choice. The rifts are multiplying. The Bist are evolving."
Kaizen stood, brushing dirt from his hands. "Then we start with the Deadlake."
---
The next morning, the first of the cursed winds began.
Black fog swept across the frozen hills like a living shadow. It whispered in forgotten tongues. One soldier, Enis, stepped into the mist—and his body twisted. Flesh peeled. Veins exploded outward like vines. He didn't scream. He only whispered:
"The Shard King remembers."
Then he burst into flame.
Kaizen watched, unmoving. His eyes flickered. Something within him recognized that fog.
It was calling him.
---
They traveled through the Stormscar Pass, where lightning struck without warning and the snow was stained with blood. Old battlegrounds littered with broken Umbra blades and shattered Bist skulls.
That's where Kaizen began to hear them again—the voices.
But now, they didn't haunt him. They spoke to him. With clarity.
"Unseal the Second Flame." "Blood must be spilled." "Only ash can silence the song of the rift."
He didn't tell Ayaka. Not yet. He couldn't bear to see fear in her eyes again.
---
Three days later, they arrived.
The Deadlake.
It wasn't water anymore. It was a basin of black liquid veined with crimson energy. Dozens of stone pillars jutted from its surface, each carved with ritualistic chains.
And at its center was a monolith.
A towering shard of obsidian, shaped like a blade stabbed into the earth.
Ayaka stepped forward. "That's one of the three seals."
Kaizen stared at it, unmoving. "No. That is the seal."
He removed his cloak, walking slowly toward the lake. The closer he got, the more his body shimmered—veins lighting up, symbols crawling up his arms like tattoos of flame.
Vorn grabbed his shoulder. "You walk in there, you might not come back."
Kaizen looked at him.
"Then make sure I come back different."
He stepped into the lake.
And the water didn't consume him.
It parted.
---
Ayaka gasped as the lake divided, revealing a path of bone and ash.
Kaizen walked the path alone.
Every step echoed with the sound of a beating heart—his own, and another—older.
The monolith shimmered.
He reached it.
Placed his hand against the surface.
The world shattered again.
---
A vision.
The three Veinborn Kings. One of ice. One of flame. One of void.
They stood over a dying planet. Creating the first rift to escape.
"The humans will betray us." "Then we shall burn their gods." "Only the last king can choose to save or end them."
They turned to look at Kaizen.
"You must choose soon."
The vision cracked.
---
Kaizen opened his eyes.
A sigil burned on his chest. The second seal was broken.
Ayaka called out. "Kaizen! What happened?!"
He turned toward her.
And for the first time—wings of living fire flared from his back.
The transformation had begun.